


The Tale of One-Inch Ryoma

by lordlings



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-21
Updated: 2011-03-21
Packaged: 2017-10-17 05:12:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordlings/pseuds/lordlings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long, long ago there lived a sweet old couple in a nice traditional house with a small temple out back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tale of One-Inch Ryoma

Long, long ago there lived a sweet old couple in a nice traditional house with a small temple out back. The wife, though content with her tranquil life in the countryside, had but one wish that occupied her thoughts day and night: with all her heart, she desired a child. The husband was not particularly enthusiastic about this prospect, being generally too preoccupied with the ringing of the temple bell and the admiration of his favourite _shinga_ masterpieces to care for little else. It was often the case that, when he was busy doing one of these things, he would respond with instinctively-timed agreement noises to any address by his wife or their niece (who also lived with them) and never paid any actual attention to the words he was agreeing with. The wife, who knew this behaviour well, accosted him during his reading time and laid a trap for him. The husband played right into her hands: the following day he found himself dragged to the nearby shrine by his wife in order to pray for the birth of a child into their family. He could not refuse to offer his respects alongside his wife, as his naiveté made him fear that doing so would expose the truth about his conversational tactics to his wife. Therefore he put his hands together and repeated along with her: “Please, please let us have a child, no matter how small.”

Eventually, and despite the husband’s private hopes that the gods may ignore his wife’s pleas, a child was born to them. But small indeed was the child - no larger than a grown man’s fingertip. They named him Ryoma, so that he may grow up to be magnificent as a dragon and strong as a horse; however, Ryoma never did grow up in estature at all, and thus earned the nickname “Issun Ryoma” among his peers. Though he was bright and well-respected for his skills, he was resentful about the limitations his height imposed on him and the constant teasing from his father whenever his mother was not around to hear, and little by little he developed a defiant strike and bratty manner which only served to make him more famous among the villagers.

One day, tired of the monotony of life in the countryside, he told his parents that he wished to seek his fortune in the big city, as his father had in his youth. Upon hearing this, the wife was seized by a melancholy mood and began to describe the adventures she and her husband had lived in the city many years ago, when they had first met, to the delight of their niece. The husband embarassed himself rather often in these stories, Ryoma noted with some pleasure, and it was perhaps because of this that he readily declared that letting Ryoma find a path for himself away from home would be a good thing indeed. The wife, distracted from her story by the husband’s sudden enthusiasm, expressed worry for her son, but her trust in him moved her to support him in his decision. She and her husband made preparations for Ryoma’s departure at once. They sent him off with a sword made of a sewing needle, a sheath made of straw, and a boat made of a rice bowl with a chopstick for an oar. “Issun” Ryoma walked along until he came upon the river that flowed towards the town. There he set his rice bowl in the water and paddled with the chopstick for days on end, until at last he reached the town.

“Issun” Ryoma walked about town, taking great care to not get stepped on by the passersby or captured by the stray animals, until he finally found himself standing before the stately mansion of the Lord of Kikumaru. At the gate he announced, “I have come to the city to work and train. I beg of you to make me a servant.” However, he was so tiny that the guards did not notice him. “I’m here, I’m here!” Ryoma shouted, annoyed. Finally the guard spotted him and lifted him up from the shadow of his geta. “Issun” Ryoma was granted permission to see the lord and, in the palm of the lord’s hand, he knelt, bowed, and pledged his loyalty. The lord took an instant liking to him (“Look, Oishi! He’s so tiny and cute, nya!” spoke the lord unto his lady, rapt with delight) and made him a retainer. His liking of the young Ryoma was such that he thought of a loving nickname for him, which he used whenever he addressed Ryoma or spoke about him. Ryoma, for his part, did not feel that this new nickname represented any substantial improvement on the old one, as it too constituted a remark on his height, and rarely bothered to hide his displeasure when he was called by it. This attitude, far from deterring the lord, made Ryoma more endearing in his eyes and boosted his career in the lord’s service. Everyone in the mansion adored the snotty yet charming “Issun” Ryoma, but none more so than the lord’s daughter, Kunimitsu. Before long, Ryoma became Kunimitsu’s personal attendant.

Kunimitsu, Ryoma soon discovered, displayed the same stiff manner both before the court and in her quarters by herself. Despite her obsession with politeness she had taken a great liking to the bratty Ryoma, and soon she found herself spending more time with him than she did with anyone else. She could not have been described as talkative by anyone’s standards, but the silence around her was not unpleasant or awkward, Ryoma discovered. Ryoma liked the princess, partly because she never called him by his nickname. Perhaps it was because the princess too knew what that was like, having a nickname of her own, though she never seemed to mind her nickname half as much as Ryoma did his. The two, despite being rather different in personality and status, grew quite close, and in some time the princess began to open up her heart to the little servant. One night, when Ryoma had already been several moons in her service, she told him the most unexpected secret of all - that she was not a princess, but a male prince, made to suffer the consequences of the lord’s love of female clothing and jewelry.

“Why do you not refuse to dress like this, if it displeases you?” asked Ryoma from his perch on Kunimitsu’s shoulder, and went about peering into the folds of Kunimitsu’s kimono as discreetly as he could manage.

“He provides for me, and has never treated me wrong; I cannot deny him a wish as trivial as this,” Kunimitsu explained, with a resigned look on his face. “He always wished for a daughter, but the heavens would not listen to him. I am long used to moving around in these clothes.”

“You still have a ways to go,” Ryoma said, because he was not sure what else one was supposed to say in such situations. His admiration for Kunimitsu grew and, for the first and last time in his life, he was thankful for having the father he did.

One afternoon not long after that, the “princess” went to pay her respects at the Kiyomizu temple, and took “Issun” Ryoma with her. Along the way, two ogres suddenly jumped out onto the road and blocked their path. “Issun” Ryoma instantly drew his sword and threw himself upon their attackers, eager to prove his skill before Kunimitsu’s eyes. However, this plan was thwarted as one of the ogres grabbed him in mid-air and swallowed him in one gulp! From within the ogre, Ryoma could hear Kunimitsu’s bossy tones ordering the evil beast to let Ryoma out or be forced to run several laps around the temple. Ryoma was so furious at having been beaten so easily that he began to stab at the inside of the ogre’s stomach with his needle-sword. The ogre was so overcome with pain that it threw “Issun” Ryoma up the way he’d gone in. Ryoma jumped in the air toward the other ogre, ready to blind it with his sword. He then saw Kunimitsu had lifted up the folds of her kimono and was kicking the ogre repeatedly in a most unladylike manner, and fell madly in love.

The two ogres fled in tears and dropped a magic hammer in their haste to get away from Kunimitsu and Ryoma. The princess picked it up and said, “If you wave this, anything you ask for - money or rice - will be yours.” Ryoma replied, “I want neither money nor rice. All I want is to become full-sized.” Kunimitsu nodded once, and waved the hammer, singing, “Grow, growwww” in a deep and melodious baritone.

“Issun” Ryoma felt his body grow thanks to the hammer’s magic. However, just as he was congratulating himself for having finally been rid of the curse that his height had meant for him, the growth stopped all of a sudden. He was no longer minuscule, but he was not normal-sized either: he had the height of a very short human boy, and Kunimitsu towered still a good head and a half over him. Pouting, Ryoma demanded of the princess that she sing the charm to make him grow again, and though she readily agreed, it had no visible effect. She tried again and again, but Ryoma remained an individual of remarkably short stature.

“Whether you’re short or tall does not matter to me,” said Kunimitsu, putting the hammer down by the side of the road. “I appreciate you all the same, for I know now that you are the one I was destined to meet. You will become the pillar of our household.” Ryoma did not understand what she meant, but he reasoned that any male who readily agreed to dress in female clothes had to have other quirks as well, and a great joy filled him upon hearing Kunimitsu’s loving words.

They married not long after that, and Ryoma took Kunimitsu back to the countryside with him. The lord Kikumaru was sad to see them go, but he promised to have a beautiful kimono made for each of them with the finest silk from overseas as wedding present, and nothing Kunimitsu or Ryoma said would dissuade him from fulfilling this promise. Ryoma introduced Kunimitsu to his parents, explaining who he was and why he was dressed like a woman. Ryoma’s father seemed largely disturbed upon hearing such explanations, and tended to avoid Kunimitsu whenever possible, which meant Ryoma also spent less time around him and more alone with Kunimitsu. They began a successful career on the side as the first cross-dressing demon busters in Japanese history, which brought them much fame and happiness, and Ryoma was never called “Issun” by anyone ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Notes:
> 
> 1\. "Shunga" or "spring images" (春画) is a term for Japanese erotic art, where the word "spring" is used as an euphemism for sex. This kind of art belongs to the Edo period, much later than the creation of this folktale, but I decided to ignore that here just so I could make Nanjiroh a perverted old dad. You can read more about shunga [on Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunga).
> 
> 2\. "Issun" was translated as "one-inch" in the English version of this folktale. "Issun" would be a little over 3 cm - that's how small the boy in the folktale was!
> 
> 3\. The kanji for "Ryoma", though never used in the manga, is 龍馬 - a dragon and a horse.
> 
> 4\. The lord's daughter is an actual girl in the original tale, and she doesn't kick ogres or threaten them with laps. She also didn't go on to become the first crossdressing demon-hunter in recorded history. Apart from that, I haven't made any changes to the original folktale. You can read it online [here](http://folkloreandmyth.netfirms.com/japan.html)


End file.
